F 
129 



Ql2\Nl^ 




QUAKER HILL 

CliOCAIi HISTORY) 

S E R I E S 



in. (SluaKer Ibttl in tbe 
lEiabteentb Century 



BY 



REV. WARREN H. WILSON 




Class 



Book^_^IlW7, 






MAP OF QUAKER HILI. AND \ ICIK 



1 i 



ir 78-80— See Descriptive Note, Page 68 



QUAKER HILL 

IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



SECOND EDITION 



BY 



REV. WARREN H. WILSON 



READ AT THB THIRD ANNUAL MEETING OP THE 

QUAKER HILL CONFERENCE, SEPTEMBER THE 

SEVENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE. 



PtTKJSHKD BT THB QUXKBR HiLL CONFBRBNOB ASSOOIXTION 

QuAKBR Hill, New York 
1905 



PuDlicatioits 



Of the Quaker Hill Conference Association 

A Critical Study of the Bible, by Rev. Newton M. 
Hall of J^pringfield, Mass. 

Tlie Relation of tlie Church at Home to the 
Church Abroad, by Rev. George William Knox, D. D.. of 
New York. 

A Tenable Theory of Biblical Inspiration, by 
Prof. Irving Francis Wood, Ph. D., of Northampton, Mass. 

The Book Farmer, by Edward H. Jenkins, Ph. D., of 
New Haven, Conn. 

LOCAL HISTORY SERIES 

David Irish— A Memoir, by his daughter, Mrs. Phoebe 
T. Waozer of Quaker Hill, N. Y. 

Quaker Hill in the Eighteenth Century, by Rev. 
Warren H. Wilson of Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Quaker Hill in the Nineteenth Century, by Rev. 
Warren H. Wilson of Brooklyn. N. Y. 

Hiram B. Jones and His School, by Rev. Edward L, 
Chichester of Quaker Hill, N, Y, 

Richard Osbora— A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. 
Monahan of Quaker Hill, N, Y. 

Albert J. Akin— A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H. Wilaon 
of Brooklyn. N. Y, 

Ancient Homes and Early Days at Quaker Hill, 
by Amanda Akin Stearns of Quaker Hill, N. Y, 
Thomas Taber and Edward Shove— A Reminisoenc* 
—by Rev. Benjamin Shove of New York, 

Some Glimpses of the Fast, by Alicia Hopkins 
Taber of Pawling. N. Y. 

The Purchase Meeting, by James Wood of Mt. 
Kisco, N. Y. ■ '. ; 

Any one of these publicatiOaiJ may be had by addressing 
the Secretary, Rkv. Edward L. Chichbstir, 

Quaker Hill, N. T 
Frio« Ten Cents. Twelve Cents Fostpaid. 






QUAKER HILL IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



In the eighteenth century Quaker Hill 
was the chosen asylum of men ot peace. 
Yet it became equally the rallying place of 
periodic outbursts of the fighting spirit of 
that warlike age; and it was invaded during 
the great struggle for national independence 
by the camps of Washington. 

There is a dignity common to the noble 
Washington battling for liberty, and the 
Quaker pioneer serenely planning seven 
years before the Revolution for the freedom 
of the slave. But he was a Revolutionist, 
they were loyal to King George ; he was a 
man of blood, brilliant in the garb of a 
warrior, and they were men of peace, 
dreaming only of the kingdom of God. 
He was fighting for a definite advance in 
liberty to be enjoyed at once ; they were 
set on an enfranchisement that involved 
one hundred years ; and a greater war at 
the end than his revolution. Their records 
contain no mention of his presence here, 
though his soldiers seized and fortified the 
meeting-house. His letters never mention 

3 



the Quakers, neither their picturesque 
abode, their dreams of freedom for the 
slave, nor their Tory loyalty. 

Each cherished his ideal and staked his 
life and ease and happiness upon it. Each, 
after the fashion of a narrow age, ignored the 
other's adherence to that ideal. To us they 
are sublime figures in bold contrast cross- 
ing that far-off stage: Washington, booted, 
with belted sword, spurring his horse up 
the western slope of the Hill, to review the 
soldiers of the Revolution in 1778 ; and 
Paul Osborn, Joseph Irish and Abner Hoag, 
plain men, unarmed save with faith, riding 
their plough horses down the eastern slope 
in 1775, to plead for the freeing of the 
slave at the Yearly Meeting at Flushing. 

Both the soldier and the Quaker laid their 
bones in the dust of the Hill, in common 
faith in liberty and equality: we have not 
yet settled the problems for which they 
fought. The history of Quaker Hill in the 
eighteenth century is the story of these two 
schools of idealists, who ignored each oth- 
er, but were moved with the same passion, 
obeyed the same spirit. It is said that a 
locality never loses the impression made 
upon it by its earliest residents. Certain it 
is that the roots of modern things are to be 
traced in that earliest period, and through a 
4 



continuous self-contained life until this day. 
This *'01d Meeting House" in which 
we are assembled to consider the past, of 
which it is a conspicuous monument, was 
founded and maintained as a house of peace, 
and its walls echt)ed on every first day to 
the words of peace; yet it had to share its 
history with the record of men of war and 
deeds of blood. It is said that on a certain 
day in the Revolutionary time the congrega- 
tion filed out at the close of the meeting and 
the soldiers marched in. That fabled scene 
is emblematic of the history of Quaker Hill 
in the eighteenth century. It is a picture 
of the plain garb and the scarlet coat; a 
story told in the Quaker's *' thee and thou " 
and the soldiers challenge and pass-word ; 
the men of authority in those days were 
the Continental officer and theQuaker elder. 
One feels about him the serene and solemn 
silence of the Friends' worship, and hears 
from without the clank of marching men 
the tramp of horses and the sharp word of 
command. This very building is a memo- 
rial to both tendencies. Here are the 
benches and raised seats for worship, and 
in the gable ends of the garret above are 
the portholes in the century old planks for 
the rifles of armed men. This house has 
been a meeting-house and a fortress. 
5 



THE OBLONG 

The name of Quaker Hill in the eighteenth 
century was **The Oblong." That name 
unlocks the religious history of the past, 
and is the clue to the path of the locality 
through every succeeding generation un- 
til recent times. It is still the name of 
the Quaker Meeting of this place. The 
name refers to a strip of land two miles in 
width, which forms an eastern fringe to 
New York state, through the counties of 
Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess. It 
was granted to New York ; and in com- 
pensation the lands on which Stamford and 
Greenwich stand were granted to Connect- 
icut after a long and bitter dispute. The end 
of the dispute and the first settlement of the 
Oblong came, for obvious reasons, in the 
same years. The first considerable settle- 
ment of pioneers was made on Quaker Hill 
in 1731, by Friends, who came from Harri- 
son's Purchase, now a part of Rye. Mr. 
James Wood, in his Bicentennial Address 
in 1895, thus describes the settlement of 
the Oblong : 

The eastern side of the country had been set- 
tled by Presbyterians from Connecticut, and th© 
western side along the Hudson River by the 
Dutch. The feeling between them was far from 
friendly. Their disputes had been very bitter, 
and Rye and Bedford had revolted from N«w 

6 



York's jurisdiction. Their whipping-posts stood 
ready for the punishment of any from the river 
settlements who committed even slight offenses 
within their limits. As the two peoples naturally 
repelled each other they had left a strip of land, 
comparatively unoccupied, between them. This 
continued in nearly a north and south line, paral- 
lel with the river, and a little more than midway 
between it and the Connecticut and Massachusetts 
lines, as far as they extended. Into and through 
the strip of land the Quaker stream flowed, like a 
liquid injected into a fissure in the rocks. Each 
Quaker home as it was settled became a resting 
place for those who followed, for it was a cardinal 
principle of Quaker hospitality to keep open house 
for all fellow members, under all circumstances. 

There had been a half century in which 
this was all disputed land, between the 
Dutch at New York and the English in 
New England. Then followed a half cen- 
tury of dispute as to the boundary between 
sister colonies, which are now New York 
and Connecticut. As soon as this was set- 
tled in 1 73 1 the emigration flowed in, and 
the history of Quaker Hill, the first settle- 
ment in the Oblong, begins. 

The first settler had been Nathan Bird- 
sail and his wife Jane Langdon, of Quaker 
ancestry, who had made a home in 1728 
on land that is now a part of the Albro 
Haines estate, and probably near the pres- 
ent old house owned by the family of 
Leonard Lyon. They had come from Dan- 
bury on horseback, because there were no 
roads north of that point. The next settler 
7 



was Benjamin Ferriss, in 1730, whose house 
stood in the memory of persons now liv- 
ing on the John J. Vanderburgh land now 
owned by the Hoag-Post family, near the 
tree in the field north of the barns and west 
of the Meeting-house. 

In the next ten years came many settlers 
to the Oblong ; among them David Akin, 
and John, Mary, Elisha and Josiah, his 
children, from Dartmouth ; from whom, 
and from his other six children born on or 
near the Oblong, are descended the various 
lines of Akins of the neighborhood. At 
this time also came Paul Osborn, from 
whose nephew and heir, Isaac Osborn, are 
descended the Osborns of the Hill. Also 
Jedediah Wing, Jesse Irish, John Hoag, 
whose names bespeak their parentage of 
Quaker Hill families, came; with others, 
whose names have passed away fromx the 
list of residents of the Hill. 

The houses in which the pioneers lived 
for the first few years have been pictured 
to us by Cornelius Van Tienhoven, an 
early Dutch official. "They dig," writes 
he, "a square pit in the ground, cellar 
fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and 
as broad as they think proper, case the 
inside with wood all around the^ wall and 
line the wood with bark of trees or some- 
8 



thing else to prevent the caving in of the 
earth ; floor this cellar with planks, and 
wainscot it overhead for a ceiling ; raise a 
roof of spars clear up and cover the spars 
with bark or green sods ; so they can live 
dry and warm in these houses with their 
entire families." 

MEETINGS AND MEETING-HOUSES. 

The years 1 740-1 742 are known in the 
religious history of America as those of 
''The Great Revival." In 1740 George 
Whitefield preached from Philadelphia to 
Boston. During those three years twenty 
thousand were added to the churches in 
Nev/ England. A great revival of piety 
and a quickening of religious activity were 
felt in all parts of the country. In those 
years Quaker Hill came to herself religious- 
ly, built a meeting-house and organized a 
local meeting, known as the Preparative 
Meeting. 

With the early pioneers came the wor- 
ship of the Friends ; many of them were 
members of Purchase Meeting, near Rye, 
the first meeting of Quakers established on 
the mainland in this state. For a number 
of years the religious history of Quaker 
Hill must be read in the minutes of Pur- 
chase Meeting, in which for the first ten 

9 



years the pioneers had their membership. 
The first mention of a Quaker meeting in 
this neighborhood is that of New Milford, 
in the minutes of Purchase, in the seventh 
month, 1739. The first entry at Purchase 
concerning Quaker Hill is the reception in 
1 74 1 of William Russell and hjs wife, who 
in the following year appears in the minutes 
as overseer of the weekly meeting at Ob- 
long. The following year, 1742, has this 
minut© (the date, 1741, in the original 
records is evidently the clerk's error, com- 
monly made at the beginning of a new 
year): ''was appointed a committee to 
conclude about the dementions of a meet- 
ing house to be built at the Oblong, the 
persons appointed are Benjamin Ferriss, 
William Russell, James Clement and Thom- 
as Franklin, and to build a meeting-house 
there." Three months after Pure^iase 
Meeting secures the settlement of a Pre- 
parative Meeting at the Oblong, *'for them- 
selves and their meetings adjacent." This 
was a notable year for Quaker Hill, both in 
rehgious growth, and in the coming that 
year of well known names to the Hill ; 
such for instance as Jedediah Wiwg and 
Ehza his wife from Falmouth. It was a 
notable gain to the Hill to have as a resi- 
dent William Russell. He was a progi^s- 
10 



sive and liberal spirit, a Prophet Haggai to 
make the people arise and build. We will 
see later that the second meeting-house, 
now standing, was erected upon his land. 
His name is connected with every notable 
event. Even in the War of the Revolution 
thirty-six years later, he was one of the 
few Quakers to gain the praise of Wash- 
ington's officers, for his liberal spirit and 
kindness to the troops. From the month 
of his arrival in the community his name 
is written in the record of every event on 
Quaker Hill. 

Two years after, in 1744, the meeting at 
Oblong became a Monthly Meeting ; that 
is, a permanent and legislative congrega- 
tion. That same year Oblong took the 
leadership in the establishment of the first 
Quarterly Meeting on the mainland in this 
state ; the first session being held at Pur- 
chase in 1745. In 1783 Nine Partners 
Quarterly Meeting was set off. By the 
year 1800 Oblong, which had remained in 
Purchase Quarterly, was in Nine Partners 
Quarterly ; and so remained. In 1744, the 
year of religious advance, the deed to the 
land on which the meeting-house here 
stood was presented. 

The present meeting-house, in which we 
are assembled, was erected about 1764. 
11 



The first meeting-house was at the end of 
twenty years too small, and had served its 
day. It stood upon land which is now 
owned by Miss Rachel Swan, directly 
across the road to the south from the pres- 
ent meeting-house. I am informed by 
Richard T. Osborn that the piece of land 
on which it stood extended from this road 
southward as far on the road to Sherman 
as the tenant-house on Miss Swan's place, 
and on the main Quaker Hill road to Miz- 
zen Top, as far south as a line from that 
tenant-house toward the barns of Edmund 
L. Post. This land was used as a burial- 
ground, the western end of it by the 
Friends, and the eastern end of it by the 
Army of the Revolution, which in its 
winter cantonment here in 1778 buried 
many soldiers there. The first meeting- 
house was moved from this site in 1769 to 
the Osborn Homestead, the present resi- 
dence of Stephen Osborn, where it was 
used as a barn for one hundred and fifteen 
years. It was torn down in 1884 by Ste- 
phen Osborn, and only a few fragments of 
it are known to exist, in the form of a staff 
for an aged saint's support or an ancient 
timber in a wall. 

The deeds of the land on which this 
mjeeting-house is built are dated 1764, 4th 

13 



month, sixteenth and seventeenth, respect- 
ively. The land was transferred in two 
parcels by William Russell and Zebulon 
Ferriss to the following persons: " Benja- 
min Ferris, David Akin, Ebenezer Peaslee, 
David Hoag, Joseph Irish, Nehemiah Mer- 
ritt, Abram Wing, all of Beekman's Pre- 
cinct." The first parcel of ground deeded 
by Zebulon Ferriss on the sixteenth, on 
consideration of four pounds received by 
him, was described as follows : ''Begin- 
ning at the southeast corner of my acre lot 
at north side of the public road, running 
west forty feet, north 132 feet, east forty 
feet, south 132 feet, where it first began." 
The other deed by which William Russell 
on the next day tranferred his land on con- 
sideration of eight pounds received by 
him, describes its bounds as follows: "Be- 
ginning at north side of road opposite Old 
Friends' Meeting-house and at southeast 
corner of Benjamin Ferris" acre-lot, north 
i2]4° east between acre-lot and William 
Russell's land east I2j^^ eight rods north, 
five rods east, eight rods south to public 
road and to point of (beginning,) forty 
rods of land." Both deeds describe the 
purpose of the transfer as follows: " To be 
applied to the use and only service of the 
Society of the people called Quakers, to 
13 



build and erect a meeting-house or meet- 
ing-houses on, and to accommodate the 
same; of which land no partition or diver- 
sion shall ever hereafter at any time be 
made but shall continue an absolute and 
entire and undivided estate in common unto 
them, the said Benjamin Ferris (et al), and 
to their heirs, survivors and survivor, for 
the only use and service of the said society 
as aforesaid forevermore." 

It is evident that this land and the meet- 
ing-house erected upon it were paid for by 
subscriptions taken in several meetings 
with which Oblong was associated. Pur- 
chase Meeting records in the next year, 
1765, nth month, 14th, that ''Teddeman 
Hull brought subscription for raising money 
towards the meeting house at Oblong, and 
a receipt from Ebenezer Peaslee for the 
money which he collected on the subscrip- 
tion, amounting to forty-three shillings 
from the Purchase Meeting." A subscrip- 
tion from "Shepaqua" is acknowledged by 
Purchase Meeting, receipted for by David 
Hoag, the amount being £1, 15s. and the 
purpose thereof the paying for Oblong 
Meeting house." The minutes of Yearly 
Meeting show that in 1764 "Quarterly 
meetings are [officially] desired to order 
subscriptions for Oblong Meeting-house," 

14 



then being erected. And in 1765 the 
''meeting-house at Oblong is reported 
built and money in advance thereon." 
Also ''Thomas Dobson and Isaac Martin 
made report that they had settled with the 
Trustees of Oblong Meeting-house, and 
that it appeared that the Cost of Said House 
amounted to £6'](), 9s. and that they had 
received from our several meetings £^31, 
19s 3d. So there is a Baliance due for said 
House of £12^], 9s 9d." 

The dimensions of the house are shown 
by a previous minute in 1763, by v/hich 
the Yearly Meeting consents to the proposal 
to build a meeting-house at Oblong and 
advises that it shall be "a Framed House of 
Timber, and the dimensions to be 45 feet 
long & 40 feet wide & 15 foot stud in 
height to admit of Gallerys." 

From the time of the erection of the 
meeting-house for the rest of the century 
the history of the meeting and the neigh- 
borhood is one of unbroken prosperity, 
which the Revolutionary War did not per- 
manently retard. In 1781 the collections 
in the meeting at Oblong were one pound 
and four shillings ; when that at New Mil- 
ford was four shillings; and that of Appo- 
quague was eight shillings and nine pence; 
again it was one pound and twelve shill- 
15 



ings when Appoquague's was fourteeen 
shillings and three pence, and that of New 
Milford two shillings and nine pence; again, 
it was '*in hard money" four pounds three 
and six, when that of Appoquage was one 
pound. There are other like indications to 
the effect that Oblong was in those days a 
wealthier, and better settled region, with 
more substantial persons living in it, than 
the surrounding neighborhoods. 

COUNTY AFFAIRS. 

The most conspicuous town in the 
neighborhood of Quaker Hill in the eigh- 
teenth century was Fredericksburg, which 
is now Patterson village. The whole re- 
gion was therefore colored with that name; 
and Washington, who wrote letters from 
headquarters on the road from Pawling to 
Quaker Hill — the same road then as now — 
dated them "Fredericksburgh." This in 
spite of the fact that Pawling had been set 
off as a town and named, nine years before 
his writing. 

When the first settlers came to the Hill 
the County was becoming so generally 
settled that laws were being passed to pre- 
vent damage from swine; it was already 
forbidden to keep one's pigs in the public 
road; and the remedy was characteristic of 
16 



the times— they could be shot. Before the 
first settler on the Hill the width of wagons, 
from one tire to the other, had been fixed 
by law at four feet ten inches. But the 
woods were full of wolves and panthers; 
and there were Indians who spent their 
time mostly in hunting. Bounties were 
offered for the kiUing of the wild beasts, 
twice as much to a white man as to an 
Indian. Even after the Revolution the 
necessity of a vigorous war on wild beasts 
is shown in the laws and bounties offered. 
When Oblong began to be settled there 
were 1,727 people in the county ; and in 
six years twice as many. Among these 
were 262 blacks, undoubtedly all slaves. 
So that, during the years when settlers 
were pouring in, there were coming with 
them the seeds of all future controversies 
and of the making of history; slaves, and 
those who would free them, meeting- 
houses and wild, warUke woodsmen who 
were to enter the army or become the 
bandits of the period. 

By the beginning of the Revolution one 
man in twenty in the county was a negro 
slave. The action taken by Oblong Meet- 
ing for the abolition of slavery, one hundred 
years before Abraham Lincoln, was effect- 
ive only on Quaker Hill. Mr. Archibald 
17 



Jodge, now living, remembers when there 
were slaves owned in Pawling, on the 
farms now occupied by E. Irving Hurd and 
Alexander H. Arnold. The last slave was 
freed on Quaker Hill in 1779. 

The state of the times is well shown by 
two lists published about this time. The 
first a Sheriff's list of the landowners of 
the county in 1740; and the small number 
of names indicates that not more than one 
man in twenty in the county was an owner 
of land. It shows moreover the name of 
not one of the families which are known to 
have been on the Hill at the time. 

The other list is that of the Quakers who 
fifteen years later, in 1755, claimed exemp- 
tion from military duty. These names are 
to Quaker Hill what the cabin list of the 
passengers on the Mayflower is to New 
England. These are your fathers, O men 
of today, for they gave the Hill its charac- 
ter ! Five years after, as types of the man 
of affairs — for there are two types of 
Quakers — John Akin and James Vander- 
burgh, justices of the peace, took the oath 
of allegiance to George the Third. Follow- 
ing is a list of Quakers who claimed exemp- 
tion from military duty in April 1755, 
from James Smith's ** History of Dutchess 
County," page 63: 

18 



Joshua Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, 

Shoemaker 
Laborer 



Moses Shearman, ,, 

Daniel Shearman, 

Joseph Doty, 

John Wing, 

Zebulon Ferris, (Oblong) ''^ 

Joseph Smith,son of Rich'd, " 

Robert Whiteley, 

EHjah Doty, Oblong House, 



Blacksmith 
Farmer 



Philip Allen, 
Richard Smith, 
James Aiken, 
Abrah'm Chase, 

son of Henry, 
David Hoeg, 
John Hoeg, 
Jonathan Hoeg, 
Amos Hoeg, son of John, 
WiUiam Hoeg,son of David 
John Hoeg, son of John, 
Ezekiel Hoeg, 
Judah Smith, 
Matthew Wing, 
Timothy Dakin 
Jonathan Dakin, 
Samuel Russell, 
John Fish, 
Reed Ferris, 
Benjamin Ferris, Junr., 
19 



Laborer 

Farmer 

Carpenter 

Oblong, Weaver 

" Farmer 

Blacksmith 



Farmer 

Farmer 

Blacksmith 

Laborer 

Farmer 

Laborer 
Tailor 



Farmer 
Laborer 

Farmer 

Shoemaksr 

Laborer 



Joseph Akin, Oblong, Blacksmith 

Israel Howland, '' Farmer 

Elisha Akin, 

Isaac Haviland, " Blacksmith 

NathanSoule, son of George '* Farmer 

James Birdsall, " Laborer 

Daniel Chase, '' Farmer 

Silas Mossher, 

Oswego in Beekman Precn't, 
William Mosher, 
Silvester Richmond, 
Jesse Irish, 
David Irish, 
William Irish, 
Josiah Bull, 
Josiah Bull, Junr., 
Allen Moore, 
Andrew Moore, 
William Gifford, 
Nathaniel Yeomans, 
Eliab Yeomans, 
William Parks, 

This hst is a fair picture of the times. 
If one estimate on this basis the full attend- 
ance at this meeting of Friends, it must be 
set down as about two hundred and fifty. 
It is notable how many laborers there are 
and how few farmers. There are just four- 
teen farmers mentioned here from Oblong; 
six men are named as common laborers, 
20 



one carpenter, one weaver, four black- 
smiths, two tailors and a shoemaker. This 
was ten years before the Prendergast Anti- 
Rent War, and titles to land were still 
insecure. If these men, the cream of the 
community in physical strength and in the 
midst of their best years, are not land- 
owners—the fourteen farmers too may have 
been tenants— we have a state of affairs 
likely to produce rebellion. 

The Anti-Rent War of 1766 is a forgotten 
event. But in that time it excited the 
people of Dutchess and Columbia Counties. 
Bodies of armed men assembled, British 
troopers marched from Poughkeepsie to 
Quaker Hill, to seize a leader of rebellion; 
and at the time of his trial at Poughkeepsie 
in August, 1766, a company of regulars 
with three field-pieces were brought up 
from New York. 

ANTI-RENT RIOT. 

The prime cause for this insurrection 
was the granting of the land in great areas 
at the beginning of the century to favored 
proprietors, so that the actual settlers could 
not become owners but only tenants. 
Fragments of such great estates remain in 
the hands of certain families till our time. 
The ownership of Hamersley Lake by 
21 



the family of that name is an example. 
The exertion of authority by these mon- 
opoHsts of natural rights drove the actual 
tillers of the soil, who had given it its value, 
to desperation. I have shown that in 1740 
no land owners were enrolled on Quaker 
Hill, and that its list of most representative 
citizens in 1755 contained few landowners. 
A further cause of this conflict may have 
been that, in the year of the settlement ol 
the boundaries of the Oblong it was granted 
to one company by the British Crown, and 
to another by the Colony of New York. 
This brought the title of all the lands on the 
Oblong into dispute. Moreover, bound- 
aries were carelessly indicated and loosely 
described, a pile of stones or a conspicuous 
tree serving for a landmark. All this 
worked great confusion, for the settlement 
of v/hich in a crude community courts 
were ineffective. 

Finally in 1766, the popular discontent 
broke out to the north in armed refusal 
of settlers to pay the rent exacted. The 
movement spread from Columbia to Dutch- 
ess County. William Prendergast, who is 
said to have lived in a house standing on 
the ground covered by the golf links in 
Pawhng, was the leader of the insurgents 
in this county. He assembled a band on 
22 



Quaker Hill so formidable that the Grena- 
diers at Poughkeepsie waited for reinforce- 
ments of two hundred troopers and two 
field pieces from New York before proceed- 
ing against him. The sight of the red 
coats was enough. Prendergast surrend- 
ered. But so great was the local excite- 
ment that to forestall an attempt at rescue 
he was taken a prisoner to New York. In 
July he was brought back for trial; and on 
the same boat with the King's counsel, 
judges, lawyers and prisoner came a com- 
pany of soldiers to put down the continued 
disturbance in Columbia County. 

The trial occured the first fortnight of 
August, 1766. Prendergast was assisted 
in his defense by his wife, who made a 
strong impression on the jury, proving that 
her husbsnd, before the acts of which he 
was accused, was "esteemed a sober, 
honest and industrious farmer, much be- 
loved by his neighbors, but stirred up to 
act as he did by one Munro, who is 
absconded." So ardent was this woman 
advocate that the State's attorney forgot 
himself and moved that she be excluded 
from the court room. The motion was 
denied, and the mover of it emphatically 
rebuked. But there was not lacking proof 
of the foct of treason, and Prendergast was 
23 



convicted and sentenced to be hanged in 
six weeks. Then this vahant woman's 
energy and perseverance rose to their high- 
est. She set off for an audience with the 
Governor, Sir Henry Moore, Bart., and 
returned about the first of September with 
a reprieve. Just in time she arrived, for a 
company of fifty mounted men had ridden 
the whole length of the county to rescue 
her husband from the jail. She convinced 
them of the folly of such action as they 
proposed, and sent them home, while she 
turned to the task of obtaining a pardon 
from the King. Here too she was success- 
ful, who had failed in nothing; and six 
months later George III, who required six 
years to be subdued by a Washington, re- 
leased her husband; and they went home 
amid great popular rejoicings. 

Although the insurrection failed, its 
principle was vindicated, and there are evi- 
dences that in the latter half of the century 
the discontent of tenants with the feudalism 
which had caused it, had passed away. 

OBLONG AGAINST SLAVERY. 

Important events now follow hard upon 

one another. The following year is the 

date of Quaker Hill's participation in the 

history of the world. For the clue to this 

24 



event I am indebted to Mr. James Wood. 
In this year, 1767, Oblong Meeting took 
action whiich resulted, after seven years of 
agitation, in the clear declaration in favor 
of the freeing of slaves. This was one 
hundred years before the Emancipation 
proclamation. 

Wilson's ''Rise and Fall of the Slave 
Power in America" says that ''Members of 
the Society of Friends took the lead in the 
opposition to slavery." There had been 
action taken in 1688 by a small body of 
Germantown Quakers, in the form of a 
petition to their Yearly Meeting against 
"buying, selling and holding men in 
slavery." But to this the Yearly Meeting, 
after eight years of delay, replied only that 
"the members should discourage the intro- 
duction of slavery, and be careful of the 
moral and intellectual training of such as 
they held in servitude." There the matter 
ended. Meantime the Quaker Meetings on 
Long Island in New York and Philadelphia 
took action recognizing slavery, with only 
a gradual tendency to regard the institution 
of slavery with disfavor. Now the time 
had come for putting the denomination in 
^ray against the institution. 

There was a preacher of the Quakers 
who traveled much from 1746 to 1767 
25 



through the colonies, proclaiming that ' ' the 
practice of continuing slavery is not right;" 
and that ''liberty is the natural right equal- 
ly of all men." In the last year of his propa- 
ganda occurred the event so notable in 
local history. Remember that this was 
thirteen years before the action of the 
State of Pennsylvania, action taken under 
Presbyterian, not Quaker leadership, how- 
ever, which initiated the lawmaking for 
emancipation among the northern colonies. 
It was "twenty years before Wilberforce 
took the first step in England against the 
slave-trade." 

*'At a (Yearly) Meeting at the Meeting 
House at Flushing the 30th day of the 5th 
month, 1767, a Querie from the Quarterly 
Meeting of the Oblong in Relation to buy- 
ing and Selling Negroes was Read in this 
meeting and its concluded to be left for 
consideration on the minds of friends until 
the Next Yearly Meeting. The Query is 
as follows : If is not consistant with 
Christianity to buy and Sell our Fellowmen 
for Slaves during their Lives, & their Pos- 
terities after them, then whether it is con- 
sistant with a Christian Spirit to keep 
those in Slavery that we have already in 
possession by Purchase, Gift or any other 
ways." 

36 



The year after, not without due hesita- 
tion, a committee was appointed which 
"drew an Essay on that subject which was 
read and approved and is as follows: We 
are of the mind that it is not convenient 
(considering the circumstances of things 
amongst us) to give an Answer to this 
Querie, at least at this time, as the answer- 
ing of it in direct terms manifestly tends 
to cause divisions and may Introduce heart 
burnings and Strife amongst us, which 
ought to be Avoided, and Charity exercised, 
and persuasive methods pursued and that 
which makes for peace. We are however 
fully of the mind that Negroes as Rational 
Creature are by nature born free, and where 
the way opens liberty ought to be extended 
to them, and they not held in Bondage for 
Self ends. But to turn them out at large 
Indiscriminately — which seems to be the 
tendency of the Querie, will, we apprehend, 
be attended with great Inconveniency, as 
some are too young and some too old to 
obtain a livelyhood for themselves." 

Here, then, is the first action in a legis- 
lative body, upon the freeing of slaves in 
America. The "Querie from Oblong" had 
secured a clear deliverance in favor of the 
essential right of the negro as a man, in 
favor of his being freed "where the way 
27 



opened," and against the holding of man 
for the service of another. The only hesi- 
tation of the meeting was frankly stated; 
emancipation was not to be pushed to the 
point of division of Christians, and was 
not to be accomplished to the impoverish- 
ment of the negro. 

Yet if this action seems to any one 
like *' trimming," it was following other 
deliverances increasingly clear and em- 
phatic. Three years later Friends were 
forbidden to sell their slaves, except under 
conditions controlled by the Meeting. All 
through the communities of Friends the 
agitation was being carried on, and the 
meetings were anxious to purge them- 
selves of the evil. 

Finally in 1775 came the clear utterance 
of the Yearly Meeting in favor of emanci- 
pation without conditions: *Mt being our 
solid judgment that all in profession with 
us who hold Negroes ought to restore to 
them their natural right to liberty as soon 
as they arrive at a suitable age for free- 
dom." At this meeting the Oblong was 
represented by Joseph Irish, Abner Hoag 
and Paul Osborn. 

It only remains to picture the rest of the 
process by which slavery was purged away 
on Quaker Hill. In 1775 the practice of 

28 



buying and selling slaves had come to an 
end, and no public abuse was noted by the 
meeting in the treatment accorded to 
slaves by their masters. The next year 
there was but one slave owned by a mem- 
ber of the meeting; and the day he was 
freed in the fall of 1777 was counted by the 
meeting so notable that the clerk was 
directed to make a minute of the event. 
The owner had been Samuel Field, and the 
slave was called Philips Another manu- 
mission in 1779 is recorded, but it was 
doubtless in the case of a new resident of 
the Hill, for it is recorded without signs of 
the joy exhibited in the freedom of Philips. 
In the years 1782-3 the final act in eman- 
cipating the local slaves was taken, in the 
investigation by a committee of the Meet- 
ing into the condition of the freed slaves, 
and the obligations of their old masters to 
them. It was not very cordially received 
at first, but in the third year of the life and 
labors of the committee it was reported by 
them that ''the negroes appear to be satis- 
fied without further settlement." So in 
sixteen years the first American community 
freed herself from slavery. If slavery could 
have been ended everywhere by this 
method, we would be today a stronger, 
nobler and more united country. 
29 



THE QUAKERS IN WAR : LOYALTY 

It must not be thought that the times of 
the two great wars between the French 
and the English and the Colonies and Eng- 
land had no effect upon peaceful Quaker 
Hill. The meeting did indeed keep its 
testimony against war clear and distinct 
before its generation, but it had to exercise 
ceaseless vigilance. In 1775 Timothy Akin 
was disowned for ''Training," and William 
Wing and Abner Hoag, Jr., are so dealt 
with as to ''acknowledge misconduct" in 
signing a paper variously described as th» 
" socetion paper" and the "sassocation 
paper." Two years after Preserved Dakin 
"acknowledges misconduct in joining an 
unlawful combindation." Benjamin Ferris, 
Jr., the son of the pioneer, expressed his 
sorrow formally to the meeting, the year 
of the camping of Washington here, for 
having "payed a sum of money on account 
of Not performing military services." Later 
in that same year, while still the troops 
were here, Elnathan Field committed the 
same offence, and was dealt with for a year 
until he made satisfactory acknowledge- 
ments. In the last three years of the war 
Johnan Chase, Isaac Dickerson and Henry 
Dickerson, and George Soule are com- 
30 



plained of, the first three for military service 
and the last for hiring a substitute. The 
two Dickersons were disowned, but Chase 
made amends to the meeting. More than 
one urgent message from Philadelphia 
Friends served to remind the Quakers here 
of their duty. 

Twice during the war the meeting took 
action for the relief of communities at a 
distance, once, after the battle of White 
Plains, on hearing that "our Friends and 
others in Westchester county are much 
Distressed or Necessitated by Reason of 
the Calamity lately happened among them ;" 
and the second time in a request to the 
Meeting for Sufferings to raise money "for 
release of the Distressed of other Denomi- 
nations in this season of Colemity." 

The Quakers were generally Tories, be- 
cause they did not believe in rebellion. 
Their allegiance during the Revolution was 
the greatest question of those years. In 
January, 1777, there were rumors of a 
Test Act, and a very responsible committee 
was appointed to wait upon the "pro- 
vential Congress," to define the relations of 
the Quakers of this region to the govern- 
ment. They could call New York a 
"province" two years after Concord and 
Lexington. Ephraim Barker was disciplined 
31 



for signing such an act of allegiance. A 
member of the meeting was appointed, 
perhaps by civil authority, to read the Test 
Act to the meeting, but reported that *'he 
did not feel easy to do so," and the Quart- 
erly Meeting had to be consulted as to the 
reading of it. 

In the fall of the year of Washington's 
presence here with his army, a new effort 
seems to have been made by Commission- 
ers of the State of New York, to secure 
avowal of allegiance to the state from the 
Friends here, and a very large Committee 
was formed to consider the matter, and "to 
wait upon the Governor, Council and Sen- 
ate of the State of New York, so called," 
in the matter. No very serious penalty 
seems to have been inflicted upon any 
resident of the Hill for disloyalty. There is 
indeed mention of the release from prison 
of Edward Brundage; and Enoch Hoag be- 
ing imprisoned **on suspicion" was "re- 
putably released" when a committee looked 
into his case. 

The loyalty of the Quakers to the King 
was no doubt the actual motive in many 
things which characterized their action at 
that time. They were not oppressed, so fai 
as record goes, yet they could during the 
Revolution refer to the State of New York 
32 



as ''the alleged state of New York." Their 
belief in non-resistance was most emphati- 
cally a belief in non-resistance to George 
III. This last demure entry in the minutes 
of Oblong Meeting, April, 1778, I must 
transcribe: ''The answering of the 14th 
Query Respecting the Defrauding of the 
King of his dues is omitted by reason of 
the Difficualty of the times therefore this 
meeting desires the Quarterly meeting to 
Consider whether it would not be well to 
omit the answering that part of the Query 
in futur until the way may appear more 
Clear." This action was taken by the 
meeting five months before the coming of 
Washington to the Hill, immediately after 
the heroic winter of Valley Forge and just 
before the British retreated from Philadel- 
phia. An official body which could speak 
of dues to the king at that time, after their 
country had been separated from him for 
three years, surely represented a com- 
munity in which the great majority were 
Loyalists, and the disorderly and violent 
were Tories. 

MEETING-HOUSE A HOSPITAL. 

A letter of great interest to the student 
of those times was written to the Governor 
of the State of New York, Hon. George 
83 



Clinton, by Dr. James Fallon, physician in 
charge of the sick which were left on 
Quaker Hill, in the meeting-house after the 
departure of the Continental Army. He 
could get no one to draw wood for his hos- 
pital in dead of winter, till finally ''old Mr. 
Russell, an excellent and open Whig, tho' a 
Quaker," hired him a wagon and ox-team. 
He could buy no milK without paying in 
Continental money, six for one. He de- 
clared that ''Old Ferris, the Quaker pul- 
piteer of this place, old Russell and his son, 
old Mr. Chace and his family, and Thomas 
Worth and his family, are the only Quakers 
on, or about this Hill, the public stands in- 
debted to." The two pioneers of the Hill, 
the preacher and the builder, were patriots 
as well. He denounces the rest as Tories all, 
the "Meriths," Akins, Wings, Kellys, Sam- 
uel Walker, the schoolmaster, and Samuel 
Downing, whom he declared a spurious 
Quaker and agent of the enemy; also the 
preacher, Lancaster, "the Widow Irish;" 
and many he called "half-Quakers," who 
were probably more zealous, and certainly 
more violent, for Quaker and Tory princi- 
ples than the Quakers themselves. 

The trouble culminated in Dr. Fallon's 
impressing the wagons of Wing Kelly 
and "the Widow Irish," to take fourteen 
34 



men to Danbury and Fishkill to save their 
lives. Tlie former impress was not resisted ; 
but the soldiers who took the Irish team 
had to battle with a mob, headed by 
Abraham Wing and Benjamin Akin, who 
used the convalescent soldiers roughly, 
but could not prevent the seizure. They 
were not the first men to do violence 
for the sake of the principle of non-resist- 
ance. It is a common thing for men to go 
to war for the sake of peace. 

So bitter were the feelings of that period 
that mercy to the sick and dying, food and 
fire to the suffering, were refused by those 
who advocated gentleness and mercy. 

One can see that modern Quakerism has 
taken a gentler tone. It is not probable that 
any nineteenth century Quaker would have 
refused help in transporting dying soldiers 
from one hospital to another. It was easier 
to free one's slaves and to contend for 
general emancipation than to apply sublime 
principles in daily emergencies. 

FREE LANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

The period of the great wars was also a 
time of the prevalence of bandits in this 
region. The story of their depredations 
has always been an attractive one, and has 
furnished many pages for histories of the 
35 



County. I may therefore omit much that I 
have gathered, so familiar is the story. 

The record of these years, on the pages 
of the clerk's minute-book, are at once a 
disappointment to the hopes of the reader 
and a stimulus to his imagination. One 
searches in vain for even the slightest trace 
of the presence in the meeting-house of 
the troops which trustworthy tradition de- 
clares were quartered there. There is no 
record of the presence in the meeting- 
house of the ** Tories" or guerillas of the 
Revolution ; and not a word about the 
makers of the rifle-ports in the gables of 
this building, which the present writer dis- 
covered there; unless it be the unruffled 
and serene utterance, under date of 8th 
Month, ninth, 1781, the very period at 
which the ** Tories" must have been at 
their worst: "Samuel Hoag is appointed 
to take care of the meeting-house, and to 
keep the door locked and windows fast- 
ened, and to nail up the hole that goes up 
into the Garratt." Can it be that this order 
was entered on the minutes as a result of 
that fabled event when the ''Tories" robbed 
the store on the site of the present Craft 
place ? They had hidden for that purpose 
in the loft of the meeting-house and were 
discovered by some young Quakers who 
36 



were skylarking in the meeting-house 
under pretense of cleaning it. The story is 
that one of the young men being dared — of 
course by a maiden — to open the trapdoor 
into the garret, and look there for the 
Tories, found them hiding there. The 
bandits, being discovered, tumbled down 
the hole from the garret, and compelled 
their discoverers to go with them to the 
store; and proceeded at once to plunder it; 
relying no doubt on the non-resistant char- 
acter of the people of the Hill. They 
stacked their arms at the door and went 
about their business in a thorough manner. 
But there was that in the blood of some 
Quakers there that could not contain itself 
within the bounds of non-resistance, and 
one of them, Benjamin Ferris, cried out, 
"Seize the rascals." In the scrimmage that 
resulted from the excitement of this remark, 
a British officer was recognized among the 
Tories by the young lady who had by her 
challenge to the young man discovered 
them, and being taunted by her was so 
incensed that he stabbed her. It is only 
said in closing the story that the blood of 
both the fair and adventurous young 
Quakeress whose abounding spirits brought 
on all the trouble, as well as that of the 
leader of the 'Tories," flows in the veins of 
37 



some who live on the Hill in the twentieth 
century. 

The '* Tories" of the Revolutionary days 
furnish the substance for the stories of vio- 
lence that are told about the fireside to 
Quaker Hill boys and girls. It is difficult 
however to persuade those who have heard 
these tales to relate them. Those who 
know them best are the very ones 
who cannot recall them in sytematic or 
orderly form. I will only mention two 
of the free lances of the time. The chiefest 
of all bandit-leaders of those turbulent 
times was Waite Vaughn. It is related 
that this fellow was the head of a band of 
Tories, which means locally the same as 
the term ''Cowboys" or "Skinners" means 
in the history of Westchester County. 
The latter were lawless bands who infested 
the regions in which the armies made civil 
life insecure, and subsisted by stealing 
cattle, plundering houses, robbing and 
often murdering citizens. "They seemed," 
says a writer, "like the savages to enjoy 
the sight of the sufferings they inflicted. 
Oftentimes they left their wretched victims 
from whom they had plundered their all, 
hung up by their arms, and sometimes by 
their thumbs, on barndoors, enduring the 
agony of wounds that had been inflicted to 
38 



wrest from them their property. These 
miserable beings were frequently relieved 
by the American patrol." 

The famous spy of the Revolution, Enoch 
Crosby, who is said to have been Cooper's 
model for the hero of the novel 'The Spy," 
came to Quaker Hill during the Revolution, 
and in pursuance of a plan he was at that 
time following, got together a band of Tory 
volunteers who were planning to join the 
British Army, and delivered them to the 
Continental forces. In this he was assisted 
by Col. Morehouse, who kept a tavern in 
South Dover, one-half mile south of the M. 
E. Church, opposite the brick house, as I 
am informed by Philip H. Smith. It was 
here that Marquis de Castellux stopped on 
his way to meet Washington at Fishkill, and 
his description of the night spent there is 
one of the most interesting pages in his 
*' Travels in North America." The New 
Hampshire drovers, with their fat oxen for 
"the Continemtal Army at Fishkill, were a very 
interesting type to him. To the country at 
that time they were a familiar figure. I am 
told that the taverns all along the road from 
New York to Albany, and from Hartford 
to Fishkill, were placed about every four 
miles, for the accommodation of those 
driving cattle, and of other travelers. 
89 



THE CAMP OF WASHINGTON — TRADITION. 

The encampment on and near Quaker 
Hill of soldiers of the Revolutionary Arm- 
ies has always been the most frequently 
mentioned and the most treasured of the 
traditions of the place. It has been a 
matter of interest to sift out the actual 
facts from the harvest of tradition, to learn 
how many and what proportion of the 
army of Washington camped here, for how 
long, and on what camping site. It is 
asserted in common tradition that the 
greater part of the army of Washington 
was here, and that is the statement in a 
letter of an eye witness, which I will quote 
later. I have encountered reasons for 
doubting this, though in this and other 
matters I have found the current traditions, 
so far as they apply to matters of fact, 
and not to sentiment or to details very 
precise, to be substantially exact. Now in 
this case the tradition is that the entire 
army of Washington camped here for one 
winter, that the artillery was disposed on 
the slopes of the hill known as Purga- 
tory — so named because it is halfway be^ 
tween Quaker Hill and every where else — 
the infantry on the valleys adjacent and the 
cavalry on the ridge above and south of 
40 



the Milan Stedwell place, now owned by 
B. West Clinedinst. It is asserted that one 
may still find traces of the ovens in which 
the soldiers did their cooking, and of the 
stone houses in which the officers lived. 
It is hkewise asserted that the Revolution- 
ary ancestress of Milan Stedwell, Lizzie 
Brundage, the wife of James Stedwell, 
Milan's great grandmother, cooked for the 
soldiers encamped on that hill in an arch- 
kettle holding two barrels. 

It is related that the soldiers often robbed 
surrounding farms, and I am told that on one 
of the forays they entered and robbed the 
home of Edward and Anna Briggs, lately 
the residence of Homer Briggs, a half-mile 
east of the Akin Briggs' place, of the corn 
stored in an upper chamber. The lady of 
the house when they came down stairs 
asked them to stay to breakfast, and they 
were thereby made much ashamed, 
and went away declaring they would 
never rob that house again, because they 
were treated so courteously. I am not told 
whether they took the corn with them, or 
indeed whether they stayed to breakfast. 
But the story is wholly consistent with the 
statements of Bancroft and of Irving, that 
during that winter the troops, while they 
were well clad with garments sent from 
41 



France, were in sad need of food, often 
lacking meat for days at a time and again 
grain for days, and at times being in want 
of both at once. 

It is also related that the old meeting- 
house was used for a hospital by these 
troops, which Dr. Fallon's letter above will 
confirm, and that they buried their dead in 
the grounds of the older meeting-house 
across the road, later purchased by Mr. 
Bancroft. The meeting assembled in the 
meantime in Stephen Osborn's house, then 
the Isaac Osborn house. 

One of the traditions of the troops here 
is that of the residence here of the noble 
Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the 
Revolution. The house which stood on 
the site of that of Mr. Archibald Dodge is 
designated by verbal tradition as his quart- 
ers during that time, in which it is also 
asserted that the trial of General Schuyler, 
under the presidency of General B. Lincoln, 
occurred. The latter is said by some to 
have occurred in the house by the road be- 
longing to Mr. T. J. Arnold. Mrs. Jane 
Crane tells me that Washington had his 
horse shod many times at the smithy lo- 
cated on the slope of Birch Hill, south of 
Will Akin's, by Joel Winter Church, whose 
autograph she has, and that the Father of 
42 



his country was unable at that time to pay 
the bill, but did so after the close of the 
war. This is in harmony with Washing- 
ton's practice elsewhere. Mrs. Crane also 
tells me that she had it from Benjamin Havi- 
land that his father, then a small boy, hv- 
ing on the Whitehead place, in Haviland 
Hollow, went up the road toward Quaker 
Hill to meet and see General Washington, 
who with his cavalcade of attendant officers 
and others, came to dine at his father's 
house, standing in the yard of the White- 
head place, nearer the road. 

It has been a pleasure, and to some de- 
gree a surprise, to be able to confirm these 
traditions of the residence here of Wash- 
ington and his troops, upon the authority 
of the best records of the Revolution. The 
name of the vicinage in those days was 
Fredericksburgh, a name which is as good 
a clue to the history of that encampment 
of the army here as is the name Oblong to 
the history of local Quakerism. 

QUOTATION OF AUTHORITY. 

The authority for the belief that Wash- 
ington resided here is, first, Washington 
Irving, who in his "Life of Washington" 
says, "Washington moved his camp to a 
rear position at Fredericksburgh on the 

43 



borders of Connecticut, and about thirty 
miles from West Point, so as to be ready 
for a movement to the eastward or a speedy 
junction for the defense of the Hudson." 
Benson J. Lossing, in his ''Fieldbook of 
the Revolution," (Vol. I. p. 331,) makes 
the same assertion. 

The time of this encampment of the 
army and of its General here was the 
Autumn of 1778. The circumstances of the 
preceding summer will be recalled by 
readers of history. It was the year follow- 
ing the terrible Winter at Valley Forge. 
Philadelphia had been evacuated in that 
Spring and the British army held only two 
posts on the Eastern coast, New York and 
Newport. Frederick the Great of Prussia, 
on learning the facts as to the British retreat 
to New York, stated his opinion as follows: 
** Clinton has gained no advantage except 
to reach New York with the wreck of his 
army; America is probably lost to Eng- 
land." In August of the preceding Sum- 
mer, Washington, coming to White Plains 
from which he had been forced away in 
1776, wrote to a friend: ''After two years' 
manoeuvering and the strangest vicis- 
situdes, both armies are brought back to 
the very point they set out from, and the 
offending party at the beginning is now 
44 



reduced to the use of the spade and the 
pickaxe for defense. The hand of Provi- 
dence has been so conspicuous in all 
this that he must be worse than an infidel 
that lacks faith, and more than wicked that 
has not gratitude to acknowledge his obli- 
gations." (Bancroft LV, p. 287.) 

In the Fall therefore of 1778, while still 
the terrible poverty of the government and 
the weakness of Congress were leaving the 
army of Washington in a low state of 
efficiency, yet in the dawn of a day of 
hope, Washington was called into this in- 
land neighborhood by the aspect of the 
British forces in New York. A letter of 
his, dated from Fredericksburgh, says : 
" There are but two capital objects which 
they can have in view, except the defeat 
and dispersion of this army; and these are 
the possession of the fortifications in the 
Highlands, by which means the communi- 
cation between the eastern and southern 
states would be cut off, and the destruction 
of the French fleet at Boston. These ob- 
jects, being far apart, render it very difficult 
to secure the one effectually without ex- 
posing the other eminently. I have, there- 
fore, in order to do the best the nature of 
the case will admit, strengthened the works 
and reinforced the garrison in the High- 
45 



lands, and thrown the army into such po- 
sition as to move eastward or westward as 
circumstances may require. The place I 
now date from is about thirty miles from the 
fort on the North River (West Point) ; and 
I have some troops nearer, others farther 
off, but all on the road leading to Boston, 
if we should be dragged that way." 

This is the only mention of the locality 
found in Washington's letters. The above 
letter is dated the twefth of September, 
1778, the first date on which he writes from 
Fredericksburgh. A letter to the President 
of Congress on the twenty-third, says: 
* • The army marched from White Plains on 
the 1 6th, and is now encamped in differ- 
ent places. Three brigades, composed of 
Virginia troops, part of the right wing, 
under command of General Putnam, are at 
Robinson, near West Point, and two brig- 
ades more, composing the remainder, are 
with Baron DeKalb at Fishkill Plains, about 
ten miles from the town on the road leading 
to Sharon. The second line with Lord Ster- 
ling is in the vicinity of Fredericksburgh; 
and the whole of the left wing at Danbury, 
under command of General Gates." 

The letters of Washington, dated from 
his headquarter here, show that he was 
here continuously, except for an absence of 
46 



a week at Fishkill which was a great depot 
of supplies, from the twefth of September 
in that year until the last of November. I 
can find no other record of his staying in 
this vicinity, though there were occasions 
on which he may, as a traveler between Hart- 
ford and Fishkill, have spent a night here. 

OFFICIAL HEADQUARTERS. 

The Headquarters of Washington in this 
vicinity are asserted by unanimous verbal, 
but no written, tradition to have been 
located in the Reed Ferris house, on the 
site of which live the Dodge-Arnold family. 
It is certain that Washington was frequently 
in this house as a guest, and perhaps used 
it as a residence. But there is evidence 
that cannot be mistaken which points to 
the location of the official Headquarters in 
a house nearer the village of Pawling, on 
the site of which the Roberts house now 
stands. 

This evidence, for which I am indebted 
to Mr. L. S. Patrick, of Marinette, Wiscon- 
sin, is as follows: First the map made for 
Washington in 1778 of Fredericksburgh 
by Robert Erskine, official historiographer 
of the Revolution. In this map the Rob- 
erts location is evidently indicated. Sec- 
ond, among the personal expenditures of 

47 



Washington at this time, of which he left 
full record, there is mention of many pur- 
chases from Reed Ferris, but no item 
indicating occupation of his property 
or premises. Third, among those expend- 
itures is one bearing date of November 28, 
1778, the day of his departure: " To cash 
paid John Kane for use of his house, &c., 
144 dollars. The name is spelled " Keane " 
instead of Kane, but Washington was 
notoriously independent of the rules in that 
matter. Fourth, on September 2^, 1778, 
Governor Clinton wrote to Robert R. Liv- 
ingston; "The army has left the Plains, 
and are now posted along the mountain 
from Danbury to West Point. Headquart- 
ers at John Kain's at Fredericksburgh, for 
which place General Washington after 
having visited the forts, passed through 
Fishkill on Sunday last." So far therefore 
as evidence exists it is to the effect that the 
official headquarters was in John Kane's 
house on the site of the Roberts house, and 
that Washington was a frequent visitor, 
with his officers, at the house of Reed Ferris, 
on the site of which Mr. Dodge now lives. 
The house in Pawling, now the residence 
of Mr. Charles H. Roberts, stands on the site 
of the Headquarters. It is thus described 
by Mrs. Elizabeth D. Kane, of Kane, Pa., 
48 



herself a descendant, as was her hus- 
band, Thomas L. Kane, of John Kane, who 
owned the place in 1778: "John Kane's 
house was conveniently built for an officer's 
headquarters. There was a large dwelling 
house, connected by a stone walled pass- 
age, 65 feet long lighted by windows, with 
a large store building which had dwelling- 
rooms above. John Kane so describes it 
in his petition to Parhament in 1794. He 
says that his 'house being situated near the 
theatre of war, and in the great route of 
Congressional troops and militia in going 
to and returning from the army, he was 
exposed to the frequent insults of a Hcen- 
tious soldiery, &c.' 

"The homestead consisted of five lots. 
87 >^ acres bought from Robert Gilbert Liv- 
ingstone, 2 1 St October, 1762; 96^ acres 
also situated in Beekman Precinct, Dutchess 
County, bought of Beverly Robinson, 21 
March, 1763; 50 acres from Sarah Bemis 
in 1770; 30 acres from Wellcom Davis; 67 
acres from Jos. A. Miller. I do not know 
on which the house stood. 

"In the year 1820, Aug. 14, John K. 
Kane writing to his father, Elisha Kane, 
says: ' I went yesterday to Pawlingstown 
and ate a bread and cheese luncheon in the 
house in which you were born. It is now 
49 



a tavern and belongs to Gideon Slocum. 
His wife's name was Cook, and her mother 
was an intimate friend of grandmother's. 
They treated me kindly and would take no 
pay. The house is ruinous, and Slocum 
intends pulling it down next year. I made 
a rough sketch of the front of it.' (Here 
follows the sketch): 'The extreme build- 
ings are of wood, the connection of stone. 
The range of buildings is near loo feet 
long. The yard in front is planted with 
poplar trees.' 

"There was a large stone building which 
had been built for a store-house, with 
family rooms above; and this connected 
by a stone covered way with a dwelling at 
a distance of some fifty or sixty feet. This 
covered way was lighted by windows and 
formed perhaps the principal feature of the 
series of buildings. The dwelling-house 
was of frame, clap-boarded, two stories 
high, and finished with some pretensions 
to style. I found it somewhat decayed, 
in charge of a family who carried me 
through it, and pointed out the room which 
General Washington occupied, when he 
was the guest of my grandfather in 1778." 

John Kane was a Loyalist, and obnox- 
ious to the patriots. His estate was 
therefore, by a law passed in October, 
50 



1779. confiscated, and himself banished 
from the State on pain of death. The dig- 
nified old magistrate is said to have been 
tied to a cart and drummed out of town. 
He petitioned the Crown for restoration 
of his property, or recompense for his 
losses; but he was charged with disloyalty 
while a member of the Provincial Legisla- 
ture, and although he made reasonable 
answer, he got nothing. 

COURT MARTIAL OF SCHUYLER. 

Connected with the stay of the army 
here and its general officers is the court- 
martial of General Schuyler for neglect of 
duty. The whole may be read in the Col- 
lections of the New York Historical Society 
for 1879. The charge is stated as follows: 

NEGLECT OF DUTY in not being present at 
Ticonderoga to discharge the functions of his 
command, from the middle of June, 1777, until it 
was no longer possible to maintain Ticonderoga 
and Mt, Independence, consistent with the safety 
of the troops and stores; when he should have 
caused a retreat to be made, for the preservatioM 
of both, under the fifth article of the tenth seo- 
tion of the Rules and Articles of War. 

The Court Martial continued its sittings 
during the first three days of October, and 
it is perhaps significant that during those 
three days Washington was absent, while 
immediately after them he returned. The 
51 



verdict of the court is as follows: *'The 
Court having considered the charge against 
Major General Schuyler, and the evidence 
in his defence, are unanimously of 
opinion that he is NOT GUILTY of any 
neglect of duty in not being at Ticonderoga 
as charged ; and the Court do therefore 
acquit him with the highest honor. B. Lin- 
coln, President." 

It is not positively known in what house 
this Court-Martial sat. Tradition says "a 
yellow house." Was there one so named 
and known ? The best of evidence indi- 
cates that the trial was at Reed Ferriss's 
house, which was the quarters of General 
Lincoln, and at times of Washington. On 
this site lives the Dodge-Arnold fiimily. 

It is interesting to us to know that this 
verdict of the court-martial, with all the 
proceedings, was forwarded to Congress, 
then meeting in Philadelphia, by no less a 
person than Lafayette, who desired with 
Washington's endorsement to secure a 
furlough for a visit to France. To secure 
that endorsement and to fight a duel, it is 
said he visited Fredericksburgh. It may be 
that at this time he was lodged in the old 
house formerly situated on the site of th« 
present residence of Richard Osborn. He 
undoubtedly visited the Commander-in- 
52 



Chiefat this time, and the tradition as to his 
lodgings is not to be doubted. Washington 
was frequently the guest of Reed Ferris; 
who had recently erected a new house, the 
door-stone of which Mr. Arnold still 
shows, inscribed with the initials and date, 
1 77 1, of the erection of the house. Reed 
Ferris' daughter Molly, nineteen years old, 
was then the young wife of John Akin, 
grandson of David Akin, the pioneer of 
1742, and her first born, Albro Akin, was 
then six months old. One can imagine the 
courtly dignity and condescension of the 
Father of his Country to the fair girl-wife 
and her infant boy, whom he saw so fre- 
quently in the house of her father, his host. 
Albro Akin, that six months' infant, was as a 
man known personally to many now living 
on Quaker Hill. His oldest son, Albert J. 
Akin, is our host, and the President of this 
Conference. 

From his headquarters here Washington 
wrote to Gates at Danbury, giving orders 
as to the repair of the roads to Boston, and 
announcing his route thither, if the British 
attack that city, by the way of New Mil- 
ford, Woodbury to Waterbury and Farm- 
ington. It was from this place that he wrote 
the famous business letter dismissing Mr. 
Jonas Hill from the care of one of his planta- 
53 



tions in Virginia, that in King William 
County-a letter which exhibits his care of his 
private business in all of its details, calves, 
tobacco, profits, accounts, in the very years 
when he was bearing the burdens of the 
American Conflict upon his steadfast mind. 
The letter to Congress discussing a plan 
of attacking Canada by a combined force 
of French and American troops and ships, 
a plan suggested by Lafayette, was written 
from his residence here. Washington op- 
poses the plan as calculated to give to the 
French a too strong footing in America; 
and with great sagacity and foresight, while 
declining the suggestion of the President 
of Congress that he counsel with Lafayette 
as to his reply, he urges upon Congress 
reasons drawn from the interests of the 
American continent in opposition to the 
project. His opinion, as usual, carried the 
day; so that, although he fought no battle 
of the sword or musket in our town, he 
gained a victory in the profounder arts of 
the intellect. 

BOARDMAN'S description of WASHINGTON. 

I have reserved until almost my last quo- 
tation of authorities part of a letter written 
by one who saw Washington on Quaker 
Hill, and wrote about it before his death. 



The original letter is the property of the 
Boardman family of New Milford, descend- 
ants of the writer. Both for its manner 
and matter I will quote the letter in its 
original form. 

** I first saw General Washington on the 
17th of October, 1778, when for a short 
time he had his headquarters at a house 
then occupied by Colonel Kane (great- 
grandfather of the late Dr. Kane) some two 
miles westerly of the Quaker Meeting- 
house on Quaker Hill, in the present town 
of Pawling, formerly called Fredericks- 
burgh, Dutchess County, and on the road 
leading to Poughkeepsie. The encamp- 
ment of the largest portion of the Conti- 
nental Army then collected in one place, 
was on the same ridge of land with the 
Quaker Meeting-house, and from two to 
three miles south of it, on the road from 
Cold Spring to Carmel, the present county 
seat of Putnam county, and within the 
limits of the town of Patterson in the same 
county. I was at that time in my tenth 
year, and like all boys belonging to ardent 
Whig families, at that stirring period, was 
intensely interested in the great events oc- 
curring around me. My father and mother 
took me with them to see the camp, then 
about ten miles distant from their residence. 
55 



The 17th of October was selected as the 
time for the visit, because it was known 
that there would be a grand parade and 
festival on that day, it being the first anni- 
versary of the surrender of Burgoyne. For 
the same reason many others availed them- 
selves of the occasion to visit the camp, 
and a large crowd of both sexes was col- 
lected. As everybody was eager to 
see General Washington, they huddled 
together on the road leading from the Gen- 
eral's headquarters to the camp, all on 
horseback, as everybody then rode who 
rode at all. The cavalcade of officers and 
their attendants who had gone to head- 
quarters to escort the Commander-in-Chief 
down to the place of entertainment soon 
made their appearance. As it was passing 
the company of spectators, my father in- 
quired of a soldier standing by the road, 
whether ''his Excellency" was in the train 
which was just riding by. He answered, 
I remember thus: — "Yes, sir; he's on the 
right hand in front on the blaze faced 
horse," and a noble horse he was. The 
cavalcade, immediately after it had passed 
the throng of spectators, wheeled to the 
left of the road into an open field at the 
foot of a very abrupt but short ascent to 
the flat upon the top, where the tables 

56 



were set under a long shade of green 
boughs. As soon as the General's horse 
came to the foot of the hill he sprang for- 
ward with the swiftness of a bird, and 
ascended by leaps rather than the ordinary 
gallop and reached the top before any other 
of the escort got half way up. Certainly 
never before, nor during the long years 
since, did 1 behold so noble an equestrian 
figure; for General Washington excelled in 
horsemanship, as he did in everything else 
he undertook. 

''When the general and his attendants 
had arrived at their destination, the spec- 
tators dismounted, and took their stand 
outside the assembly of officers, who joined 
in numerous parties in conversation for a 
long time before dinner was served. My 
eyes were riveted during the whole time 
upon General Washington, whose noble 
personal appearance and majestic bearing so 
far exceeded any other present as to leave 
no room for comparison. A lofty stature, 
two inches over six feet, with a form as 
perfect in its proportions as possible to 
represent both gracefulness and strength— 
a nearer and repeated view of him many 
years afterwards, when in the office of 
President of the United States, enables me 
to say that my first sentiment of his per- 
57 



sonal appearance was not mistaken, though 
formed in the enthusiasm of boyhood. I 
gazed at him for at least two hours, scarcely 
having patience to have my attention 
turned to other distinguished officers whom 
my father pointed out to me, such as Bar- 
on Steuben, General Knox and the Baron 
De Kalb. I then believed that I was look- 
ing at the noblest and best man in the 
world, and eighty years of reading and re- 
flection which have since elapsed have in 
no wise changed that early impression. 
The General was dressed in a blue coat 
with buff facings and large gold epaulets 
with buff colored small clothes and vest, 
and boots reaching quite to the knee. His 
hair, of which he had a great quantity, was 
craped and turned back from the forehead, 
and dressed in a very large and long braid 
or twist upon his back; the whole pro- 
fusely powdered as was then the fashion. 
His sword was what was called a hanger, 
shaped like a sabre but much shorter and 
lighter. It was worn attached to a belt 
around the waist under the coat. The 
handle was of green ivory, the hilt and 
guard of it silver, and was the same that 
was presented to Congress some years ago 
by the relative to whom it was bequeathed 
by the General's will. Such was my impres* 
58 



sion at the sight of the greatest man of his 
own or any other age. The picture is 
stamped on my memory in living light and 
the time seems only to increase the fresh- 
ness of the coloring." 

WINTER CAMP ON THE HILL. 

The last letter of Washington written 
from this town; November 27, 1778, gives 
the following disposition of his forces for 
the winter, and throws Hght on the ques- 
tion of the number of troops he had in 
this vicinity. From this it would appear 
that the statement of Mr. Boardman that 
the largest assembly of the Continental 
Army was in this vicinity is either to be 
taken with the allowance due to mere 
recollection, or is to be understood as 
referring only to a short period. After 
locatirig nine brigades of the army west of 
the Hudson, and six on the east side there- 
of, of which six one was at West Point, 
two at Fishkill and Continental Village, 
which was a small cluster of houses in S. 
W. PhiUipstown, he continues, "The re- 
maining three brigades, composed of New 
Hampshire and Connecticut troops and 
Hayne's Regiment, are in the vicinity of 
Danbury, for the protection of the country 
lying along the Sound, to cover our mag- 
59 



azines lying along the Connecticut River, 
and to aid the Highlands in any serious 
movements of the enemy that way." I 
am inclined to think from this and other 
statements, uncontradicted by any facts so 
clear, that the army which was here in this 
time was never larger than would appear 
in this statement; while the troops which 
wintered here cannot have been more than 
perhaps a regiment or two. However, on 
this, there is still room for further informa- 
tion. It is at least probable that the review 
mentioned by Mr. Boardman, perhaps in- 
tended as a show of strength to the 
enemy, was an assembly of the most of 
the troops between Danbury and Fishkill. 
The same letter describes the character 
of the encampment in terms which har- 
monize perfectly with the local traditions 
and with the stories on the remains of that 
encampment on Purgatory Hill. "It is un- 
necessary to add," continues Washington, 
"that the troops must again have recourse 
to the expedient of hutting, as they did last 
year. But as they are now well clad, we 
have had more leisure to make some little 
preparation for winter quarters. I hope 
they will be in more comfortable situation 
than they were in the preceding winter." 
This comparison of Quaker Hill and other 

60 



locations in this vicinity with Valley Forge, 
pictures the winter that followed to the 
imagination in vivid colors. And every 
old family in the neighborhood has its tra- 
dition of the presence at their door of the 
hungry and needy soldier of the Revolution 
during that winter. 

CONCLUSION. 

With the close of the Revolution the 
dramatic and interesting history of the Hill 
in the Eighteenth Century closes. The 
next era of interest is that of the first forty 
years of the nineteenth, the era of turn- 
pikes, the earliest of which, iMarch 30, 
1802, in this county was *'the Quaker Hill 
Turnpike," extending from Jeptha Sabin s 
on Quaker Hill to the foot of the mountain 
called "Fishkill" thence to Peter Brill's in 
Beekman. It is the era of the greatest growth 
and most numerous population the Hill has 
ever seen, as many abandoned house-sites 
and half-filled cellars demonstrate; it is the 
period of the great disruption in the Ob- 
long Quaker Meeting. 1 have attempted to 
write of the earlier stratum of history, 
which is typified by the old field across 
the road there, long since ploughed up and 
modernized, in which lie the bones of the 
Quaker pioneers, who placed no head- 
61 



stones and wrote few diaries and no his- 
tories; the field sown also with the bones 
of the soldiers of the Revolution. They 
He in peace together, those men of the 
inner light and the outer plainness, and 
those men who, looking on the outer 
affairs of life, saw the necessity and re- 
sponded to the call to take the weapons of 
death in their hands; who died far from 
home, in the lingering anguish of the im- 
provised hospital, in the bare, fireless 
meeting-house. Side by side their bodies 
have gone to dust, and side by side their 
spirits have gone to God who made them, 
whose mercy was as necessary for the one 
as for the other. These all died in their 
faith. God grant that their faith may not 
die with their descendants and successors. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

James Smith's History of Dutchess County. 
Philip H. Smith's History of Dutchess County. 
Lossing's "Field Book of the Revolution." 
Bancroft's " History of the United States." 
Irving's " Life of Washington." 
"Gazetteer of New York," 1812. 
Akin and Ferriss and Wing and Hoag " Family 
Records." 
De Chastellux's "Travels of North America." 
Anbury's "Travels in North America." 
Thacher's "Military Journal of the Revolution.'* 
Wilson's *' Rise and Fall of the Slave Power." 

62 



Records of Oblong Meeting House, Purchase 
Meeting, and of the New York Yearly Meeting. 

Barnum's "Enoch Crosby." 

"The Writings of Washington," especially in 
Fall of 1778. 

Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, 
1859, etc. 

Poughkeepsie Eagle, July, 1876, Lossing's Ar- 
ticles. 

New Milford Gazette 1858, Boardman's Letter. 

Fishkill (New York) Packet, 1776-1783. 

New York Mercury, 1776-1783. 

Public Papers of George Clinton, First Governor 
of New York. 

Map of Fredericksburgh and vicinity, 1778, by 
Robert Eskine. Photo by L. S. Patrick; in Lenox 
Library. 

NOTE. 

It seems to me worth while to add a short ac- 
CK)unt of the records of the Oblong Meeting. It 
has cost a great deal of time to discover where 
these records are located ; I am indebted to the 
generosity of Miss Cornelia Taylor for the means 
of consulting them. The Meeting was divided in 
the year 1828 into two bodies of Quakers, of 
which that retaining the use of the Meeting-House 
eeased to assemble in 1884. At the time of the 
division each of the two bodies retained the 
records in the possession of its members, each 
lAaintained that it was the original body of the 
Society of Friends. Until recent days the records 
were thus dispersed, chiefly in two places. Some 
of them are in private houses. The Hicksite 
Quakers through their Yearly Meeting collected 
most of their records, and put them in charge of 

63 



their Custodian, John Cox, Jr., in the safe at their 
Meeting-house at Sixteenth St. Records in the 
possession of the Orthodox Friends were collected 
in the storage vaults of the Produce Exchange, in 
the charge of Charles W, Lawrence. 

In 1903, by joint action of the Yearly 
Meetings of the two Societies, the follow- 
ing "Joint Committee on Records of the 
Religious Society of Friends" was intrusted 
with the care of these previous sources: 
John Cox, Jr., Chairman, 156 Fifth Ave- 
nue, New York, James Wood, Charles W. 
Lawrence, Alfred Busselle, Franklin T. 
Carpenter, Ellwood Burdsall. The follow- 
ing statement is quoted from their official 
paper: 

"The records, documents and papers belonging, 
or relating, to the meetings and their allied 
organizations throughout the two New York 
Yearly Meetings (one held at Fifteenth Street, 
New York, and sometimes called "Hicksite," the 
other held at Twentieth Street, New York, and 
elsewhere, and sometimes called "Orthodox,") 
were brought together in 1904 and placed in the 
care of this Joint Committee at the Fifteenth 
Street meeting house, entrance, 226 East Six- 
teenth Street. 

"All volumes are numbered and catalogued to 
facilitate examination, and a descriptive "Cata- 
logue of the Records of, or relating to, New York 
Yearly Meeting and its subordinate branches," by 
John Cox, Jr., begun in 1897, is nearing com- 
pletion. It includes all known records from 1663. 

64 



"Many lost volumes and papers have been 
found and restored. We earnestly request all who 
have any such books or papers in their possession 
or who know of such to notify the Committee of 
the fact, and if not ready to send them promptly to 
give information as to their nature and period, so 
that they may be properly listed in the Catalogue. 

"The Records maybe seen in the presence of 
the Custodian by members of either New York 
Yearly Meeting without fee. Other persons are 
charged a fee of $1.00 per hour, minimum fee 
$1.00. All applications to see the records should 
be addressed to the Custodian, John Cox, Jr., 156 
Fifth Avenue, New York, (telephone connection) 
Examinations to be made at convenience of Cus- 
todian by previous appointment, or John Cox, 
Jr., will make the examination and report theron 
at the same rate. " 

From the year 1 744 Oblong Meeting was 
a meeting of record, but for thirteen years 
the records of the minutes were written on 
loose sheets, which have been lost. They 
may indeed be in existence, for in 1760 the 
meeting directed Clerk Zebulon Ferriss to 
record the minutes for the time he has 
been clerk; and appoints two to record the 
previous minutes from the establishment of 
the meeting. If those two did as they 
were directed, there should be a book of 
the oldest records of the Hill in existence; 
a|nd in any case there may be, in some old 
leather bound trunk, leaves of records 

65 



from 1744 to 1757, whose value is beyond 
calculation. The minutes of the meeting 
from 1757 until the division and from that 
date until the Hicksite Meeting was laid 
down in 1884, are in the possession of Mr. 
Cox. From 1828, the year of the division 
until the present year, the minutes of the 
Orthodox Friends are in the possesion of 
Richard Osborn. The minutes of the 
Women's Meeting previous to 1807 are 
missing; one volume, from 9th Mo., 14th, 
1807 to 3rd Mo., i6th, 1835 is with John 
Cox. In the same place are three volumes 
of the record of Births, Marriages and 
Deaths: one from 1745 to 1774; then, after 
a gap, due to the absence of a volume, is 
the second, from 1786 to 1866; and a third 
volume of births and deaths alone from 
1828 to 1893. Volumes lacking in this 
greatest collection of the minutes and other 
records are the records of birth and deaths 
previous to 1828: and of marriages from 
1774 to 1786. 

The records of the present Orthodox Meet- 
ing in full, as well as the following two 
volumes of the records of the Preparative 
Meeting of Ministers and Elders at Oblong, 
are in the possession of Richard T. Osborn 
on Quaker Hill; first from loth month, 
1 2th, 1785, to ist month, 13th, 1878; and 
66 



second, from 1878 to present time. An 
interesting minute in the older of these 
volumes is the record of the appointment 
to the ministry of Peter Lossing, an ances- 
tor I am informed, of Benson J. Lossing, 
the historian. 

Last of all, the records of births and 
deaths of the meeting, from 18 10 to the 
present day, following the line of the Or- 
thodox society, is in the possession of 
Robert Post. 

The oldest records therefore of the do- 
ings in this meeting are contained in the 
records of Purchase Meeting, the mother 
society, from the earhest date, about 1741, 
at which Oblong is mentioned, to 1744, 
when it became an independent monthly 
meeting. Most of the early settlers on the 
Oblong came through Purchase, married 
under it in many cases and left their names 
on its pages. 

Probably many of these old records are 
lost; but there must be some of them still 
on the Hill, in the old rag and paper bags 
of old families. There never should be an 
auction, and never a house-cleaning, with- 
out an alert watch for the discovery of those 
old records. The state of an old volume 
of Men's Minutes of Branch Preparative 
Meeting is a pathetic record of the care 
67 



that all these books have had. It is en- 
cased in the original buckskin bag in which 
it was carried to the meeting by the clerk, 
doubtless on horse back. Its lids closed 
with leathern thongs. But sixteen of its 
leaves, one of them dated 1790, have been 
mutilated. Out of each page two circular 
holes are cut away, to make covers for 
jelly cups. It would seem that a careful 
clerk had a frivolous granddaughter, who 
** probably thought," as John Cox says, 
''the minutes were so dry .that they would 
keep the jelly from moulding." 

MAP OF QUAKER HILL AND VICINITY. 

Made by Robert Erskine, 1778-80, 
official geographer to the Continental army. 
Landmarks are as follows: Pawling vil- 
lage is now located near the words ''Waters 
divide here." " Fredericksburgh " is now 
Patterson. "New Fairfield" is now Sher- 
man. The Old Meeting House is at the 
cross roads west of "New Fairfield" and 
east of Hamersley Lake. Original in pos- 
session of New York Historical Society. 



68 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 109 573 





kU 



